Weekend Warzone: In Summary

Saturday and Sunday and Monday are a blend. I don’t even know if I changed clothes (also I was getting behind on laundry and we had to go to Walmart and get Matt deodorant as there were a few moments of “intensity”).

Here’s a bit of a rundown.

Dining Room: after getting all wallpaper and glue off, Matt sanded the remaining walls, we primed. Waited for the prime to dry and then textured it. We had a bit of struggle with the texture but thanks to a little patience and a little direction, we got going in the right way.

Kitchen: ripped 2 coats of wallpaper down, washed the glue off, plastic-ed the whole thing up and down, Matt sanded the walls, we primed, textured, primed, ceiling painted, and finally got a little “Goldilocks” on the walls. We had to do a second coat before ripping down and the plastic. Our next step is washing and putting shelving paper in.

Den: This was the room that he/she must have smoked in. We had to use a special wash to go these walls to get the smoke stains off. We primed the walls and ceilings twice before putting ceiling paint up. Matt even got the paint sprayer out to do a layer of priming. We ceiling painted and got a layer of “Orchard Hills” up. Needed a second one too and hope to get a final carpet cleaning and we’ll consider this room done.

Living Room/Stairwell: Glue was the main problem here. I scrubbed as far as I could reach or until I started taking the wall/texture off. Got a little direction from someone about a product that really changed my day, “TSP”. That got the thick glue down pretty well, just had to keep it soaked. We ended up going back to ace to take that on again for another room(s). We’ll get the painter in to prime and finish these out hopefully within the week. We are anxious to trade out the lights here and in the dining room.

Guest Bedroom: (Matt is temporarily calling this room the Matador room) We’ve ripped the first layer of wallpaper off and are staring at the glue that’s behind. The nice thing is that instead of the whole room, it’s only one wall. We still want to prime and paint the whole room but we’ll do that after we put up texture.

Master Suite: This room is exhausting as it had wallpaper over wallpaper and the top layer was painted. This stuff is coming off in pieces about the size of a quarter and underneath the bottom layer is untextured, which means that when we

get to close to the sheetrock, we’ve made some “divots”, which will have to be repaired before we prime, texture, and paint “cotton ball” on the wall. Matt’s patience with this room is 0. In fact, I’ve rewarded his bad behavior and kicked him out of the room while I sit and “peel” and he can go paint fun things. This is the ugliest wallpaper that you’ve seen in a long time. Once we get it out of the bedroom, we’ll get to get it out of the bathroom as it’s also taken that room over. And then I also want to paint our walk-in closet. Our longer term goal is to replace the fan in there too as it’s not exactly our style.

That’s pipe dream material. Heck, maybe taking the wallpaper down is a pipedream.

During this time, we’ve been to Ace, Runnings, Wal-mart, Menards, Sherwin Williams, and Lowes. Experiences have been mixed and even shitty at best, I think I had a minor blow up at Wal-mart one day because of the quality of help. We’ve bought tools, paint, mud, cleaning products, treatment, more paint, sponges, and brushes. I’ve eaten so much popcorn because in my head, we’ve spent so much at Ace that I should eat what we’ve spent in popcorn to make up for it all.

We've been up most nights at the house til midnight. I miss my bed and I think our kitties miss us.

Best meal: we’ve eaten crap lately, I’ve got nothing. My favorite was probably tacos from Taco Bell because it was cheap.

(Staring at a wall with fresh texture)
MJR: Is this how you want it to look?
ALM: Is this how it’s supposed to look?
MJR: I don’t know.
ALM: You’ve had more experience with texture than me.
MJR: We have the same.
ALM: Na-ah, you had Bob texture your house in Lansford, you’ve seen how my mom textures. She puts the mud on the wall and calls it a day.
(More staring by both)
ALM: Maybe you didn’t go light enough.
MJR: Thank you for not freaking out.